Started in a small apartment in France as a direct marketing catalogue, by 1998 Vistaprint had started to evolve into an Internet based e-commerce company, albeit one that was still dedicated to the same customer needs. A big breakthrough came in 1999, when the company developed breakthroughs in both internet-based graphic design tools and in production methods that slashed the cost of low volume printing. Using patented online graphic design tools and a printing process known as “ganging,” the company produced short run, small quantity orders of business cards in a rapid fashion.